This is the longest three weeks of the year for me, waiting for the start of college football.
NCAA Football. It's football in it purest form, played mostly by young men who thrilled parents on Friday nights, reached their goal of playing Saturdays, and only on Sundays in their wildest dreams. It's the drum corp working tens of thousands of fans into a frenzy followed by the rest of the band making their hearts race. It's the pride of your alma mater, state, and community in human form taking the field in their colors. No contract hold outs, no free agent controversy, and no tight hash marks. It's guts for pure glory, pain for gain, and memories of a lifetime. It's in our blood and has etched a place of fondness in their hearts, and my hope is that everyone could feel this at some level, at some time.
The hype of the press and that of fans, who have talked on cold winter nights and fresh spring air as they debate how their teams will make a showing, awaiting the pre-season polls, reaches a fever pitch until the first snap of the ball. The chalk dust settles and the wastepaper baskets in coaches' offices are filled with the plans for the season. Weight rooms sing with the clatter of steel once again after seeing months and months of toil spent in preparation by players hoping to be their best.
All the cheers and hype are suddenly and simultaneously caught in throats and hearts causing a stop in time in a dead silence as the center squats over the ball and the referee steps back. For that instance, time stands still for millions. For that instance everyone comes back from the dead. For that instance the senses of millions of fans are all trained on a singular point in our universe.
The flood gates are finally opened as a hand of a 330 pound 20 year-old leads his fellow linemen to the line of scrimmage, squats over the ball and waggles it like a ruling scepter. In that instance, millions of eyes see the ball placed on edge, smell the fresh grass crushed under it's weight, and hear the signals of the quarterback.
God, that smell! There is simply nothing like it as grass yields to cleats and fingertips.
What's your fetish? NCAA football is the thrill of watching a defense being strung out by the option, as a QB fakes an LB out of his socks. It's the irresistible force of the wishbone meeting the immovable 6 man front. It's the subtle pull of a guard to trap an on-rushing defensive tackle, a receiver diving full out for a ball with little concern of the impact, and chin straps forced undone in a bone crushing hit.
All these are rarities on Sundays, but on Saturdays they are the expectation and a thing of beauty.
